Nas Air adding new routes this year
Saudi Arabian budget airline Nas Air said it hopes to more than double the number of passengers this year with new services and better utilisation of its aircraft fleet.
The company has been operating its planes below capacity as the routes did not grow in line with aircraft acquisitions, officials told Gulf News.
It is leasing two of its Embraer 190s to an airline based in Ukraine as the new planes are not required for the operations this year.
Nas Air's current fleet comprises seven Airbus 320s and four Embraer jets.
No new plane deliveries are scheduled next year, but the fleet will grow to have 14 Airbus 320s and 17 Embraers in 2012, while two years later there will be 13 more Airbus planes, according to chief commercial officer Maria Angelika Hanne.
"In 2009 we have made a five-year plan and based on that we will grow passengers by 100 per cent this year. We need only 11 planes to achieve this," she said.
The airline carried about 900,000 passengers last year and has been recording a seat load factor of 65 per cent this year, according to Walter Prenzler, chief executive officer of commercial airlines at National Air Services (Nas) group.
The company, which started in February 2007, has adjusted its expansion plans to face the growth slowdown in the current depressed world economic conditions.
It had ordered 15 short-haul planes from Brazilian planemaker Embraer in 2007 and they were to be delivered over a period of five years.
Hanne said the company now has a clearer strategy of its requirements and that is why two planes being delivered this year will be leased to the airline in Ukraine.
"Our fleet utilisation has been very low at six and a half hours per day (per plane). This year it will increase to nine hours and next year to ten hours," she said.
The company had expected a stronger growth in routes when it started but the travel sector has been hit by the global economic downturn.
"Airline passenger traffic was growing 15-18 per cent but the growth has declined to single digits now," Prenzler. But he takes heart from the fact that the Middle East is still the only region where passenger numbers are rising.
He said despite the pace of growth going down, the company is adding routes. At present it serves 13 domestic and seven international destinations.
Domestic traffic accounts for two-thirds of the carrier's total passengers.
This month Nas Air will add Latakia to its network and increase frequencies to Damascus and Kuwait. Services to Sharm Al Shaikh, Assiut and Sanaa will begin on July 1.
Gulfnews: Nas Air adding new routes this year